A Merry Little Christmas
by Anomilee1
Summary: Some Christmas fluff with contextual meaning and direction, a future excerpt from The Overhaul. But you don't have to have read that to read this. You may be a little loss, but not completely. Merry Belated Christmas!


**A/N: Okay, I was supposed to post this on Christmas Eve, then on Christmas Day, but never got around to it, so sorry, hear it is the day after Christmas but better late than never right. I was just trying to do something to get myself into the Christmas mood and this is the result of that since I had already done Christmas in my other fic I decided to do it in this one. I like to think of it as a future excerpt from The Overhaul, just a bunch a fluff and a glimpse on where I plan on taking this story. It was originally supposed to be longer, maybe five parts or so but I got started on it late and never really got into the Christmas mood, so I may add another part but I don't know when. Hope you enjoy. I still have to proofread but I needed to get this posted before I changed my mind. I've been writing a bunch of things here and there and haven't posted. I need to go on a posting spree.**

* * *

"No, no, no," she said using the child's chanting of the word as she ran behind her, "you come here." She scooped the child up and placed a kiss on her cheek before heading for her computer where her facetime alert was going off. "We have to talk to Daddy."

"Daydee?" the child questioned looking into her mother's face. She hadn't seen her father in a couple of weeks and was missing him.

"Yes," Olivia responded with a smile as she sat down on her couch next to the end table that held the computer. She settled the child in her lap before picking up the computer and placing it on the arm of the couch so they could see the screen better. She then hit accept and Jake's face appeared on the screen.

"Hi," she said with a smile, having missed him a little herself. But she wouldn't admit that out loud, for different reasons now than would have been last year around this time.

"Hi," he said, a smile coming to his face as well at finally seeing them on the other side of his screen.

"Aye Daydee," Adeline managed to babble out. At least that's what it sounded like. Daddy was clear but there was a word or two of gibberish thrown in there somewhere as well.

"Hi Baby," he said as his smile widened and Olivia could practically see his heart melting inside of his chest.

The child continued her conversation, her parents struggling to understand most of what she was saying as her vocabulary was limited to mostly names and very common objects, so most of it was gibberish. But none the less they carried on the three way conversation until the child became distracted by her mother's cell phone which Olivia let her have in order to keep the peace long enough to finish the conversation and hopefully get out of the door without any meltdowns.

"Now what were you saying?" she asked as she double checked the phone to make sure it was locked.

"I'd said that me making it back for Christmas wasn't looking too bright anymore," he said.

"Oh, no. Why not?" she asked as her brows furrowed. Truth was, she was counting on Jake being home for Christmas. Now it looked like she was going to have to spend it just her, Addie, and Quinn. Not that she had a problem with that, she had just set her heart on her and her daughter being with more family for Christmas. She was really in the holiday mood this year and wanted to spend time with the people she cared about, but that hope was beginning to look bleak. Anna and Alex had decided to stay in New York for the holiday, Abby was going to New York to visit Stephen. Huck was with Kim and Javi and they definitely needed their space and time alone as a family, and Marcus was going to Atlanta to visit some of his extended family. Her father was not...well she just wanted a more cheery and upbeat atmosphere, which also left her mother out since they were still in the early stages of their re-bonding if you could call it that. Jake had been her last hold out to have someone over other than Quinn, and now it looked like he was going to be stuck in New York as well. She guessed it would be just her, Addie, and Quinn.

She finished her conversation with Jake, letting him know that he sucked for not wiggling his way out of work in time enough for him to make it back to D.C. He laughed at her and apologized, letting her know that he would be on the first available train from New York to D.C. and that he was also less than thrilled about the change in plans as he was looking forward to seeing them as well. They said their goodbyes and she closed her computer then proceeded to grab a few more things to take with her. She then chased the toddler down again and managed to get her coat on her before heading out of the door to her car.

* * *

"Good morning, Huck," Olivia said as she passed Huck's cave on her way to her office.

"'Morning Liv," he said, and smiled at what he knew was coming immediately after.

He wasn't able to make out the first couple of words, but he was able to make out "Uck". He always took it as her good morning as the little girl always toddled into the office, hot on her mother's trail, with her little designer clothes looking like a tinier version of the woman. He found the child utterly adorable, even though he would never say that out loud, though everyone knew he did. They didn't know the man smiled at anything other than the sinisterly dark or when someone was caught in a particularly uncharacteristic situation. But being forced to be around the child had made him a little more soft hearted, and Olivia often times figured that it could have been his interactions with her daughter that motivated him to give his relationship with Javi and Kim another shot after he and Quinn destroyed it the last time by allowing the boy to go on a stakeout with them.

The "Wook Uck," that followed prompted him to turn around as he heard the little footsteps coming into his office. She was the only one that entered without any courtesy warning. Even Olivia gave a swift knock on the door frame, announcing her presence before walking in. He saw Olivia smile at the child as she continued towards her office.

"Hey Liv, what's up?" Quinn greeted her with a cup of coffee in one hand and a paper in the other.

"I don't know," she said hanging her coat in the closet before proceeding to her desk to check her emails. "You tell me. We got anything?"

"Nope," she said as she took a seat in the chair in front of the woman's desk. "I thought you may have come across something over night. Something from the white house at least."

"Nope," she said. "All's quiet from what Abby told me last night before she left town."

"Mm," Quinn said swallowing the coffee in her mouth. "How'd she get all that time off anyway?"

Olivia explained to the woman that it was extremely easy for Abby to get time off seeing as how Liz eagerly picked up her slack and jumped at the chance to be the solo person in charge, in that area anyway, while she was gone. She left out the part of the push back Abby told her she got from Fitz seeing as how Abby was now the only straight connection he had to Olivia. She had rolled her eyes and acknowledged to herself how grateful she was for not having to put up with certain issues of the white house anymore and that she could actually be happy and focus on being with people she actually cared about and shared a healthier relationship with, although they all seemed to be trying to ruin the plans she made for them.

"By the way, it's just going to be us for Christmas," she told Quinn as she looked down at some papers on her desk, making sure that there was nothing that needed her immediate attention. She looked up when the woman didn't respond and saw her staring at her with wide eyes and confusion.

"Quinn?" she questioned knowingly. She had made it very clear to Quinn that she expected her at her place for Christmas dinner but now she was giving her the same look that Abby, Marcus, and Huck had given her when they canceled on her.

Quinn just stared at her. "Quinn you promised," she said putting the papers aside.

"I know, I know Liv and I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you. I wanted to tell you last week," Quinn started to ramble.

"What Quinn?" Olivia said folding her arms. If she was going to cancel on her, she didn't want to have it drawn out.

"Charlie booked us a trip to Tahiti. We leave on the twenty-second and come back the day after New Years," she said.

She just stared at her employee. "Whatever Quinn," she said as she turned to her computer screen.

"Liv, don't be like that," Quinn said with a laugh.

"Who wants to go some place warm for Christmas anyways," Olivia said, knowing that many people did, including herself at times. "Most people travel to find a white Christmas."

"I know," she responded, "but you've never seen Charlie in a speedo…"

"Okay, no," Olivia immediately halted the woman's verbal assault on her mental visions. "Go to Tahiti, have fun. I'm sorry I even brought it up."

Quinn laughed causing Olivia to smile as well.

"What's so funny?" Huck asked as he walked into Liv's office holding Adeline.

"Quinn's abandoning our Christmas plans," Olivia informed him. "Now it's just going to be me and Addie."

"Well you guys can always come over and have dinner with us," Huck offered.

"That's very sweet of you Huck," she told him, "but you guys need your time alone. We'll be fine. We'll just stay in our pajamas all day, drink hot chocolate and watch Christmas cartoons."

"That sounds awesome," Marcus said as he walked in with a few bags of food. "I got breakfast. When are we doing this?"

"We, are not doing anything," Olivia informed him as they all got up to move into the conference room. "This is only for people whose Christmas plans got ruined."

Marcus looked around slightly confused. "Quinn ditched Liv at the last minute now Liv's trying to guilt trip everyone," Huck caught him up.

"I did not ditch her," Quinn said, and everyone just looked at her. "Well not at the last minute. She has an entire week to make new plans."

"You can come home with me," Marcus offered. "My family would be happy to have you. Of course they are going to torment you the entire time trying to get you to admit that you're my girlfriend and that Addie's my daughter but if you can ignore that you're more than welcome."

"I think I'm going to have to politely decline," Olivia said sarcastically. "I'd rather not be harassed by your family over you inability to settle down and give your parents grand-kids."

He just shrugged. "Suit yourself, but it'll be worth it. My grandma's doing most of the cooking."

The conversation then drifted to grandmothers, mothers, aunts and their best dishes. Olivia didn't have much to contribute to the conversation, though she did remember that her mother was actually a pretty good cook before she disappeared.

"Here baby," Olivia said trying to get the child to take a bite of her breakfast sandwich.

The child turned her head away as she put the food closer to her mouth. "Mm uhn," the child replied, using her hand to push the food away before trying to climb on top of the table.

Olivia sat her back down in the chair and tried again. "No, no Mommie," she replied causing Quinn and Marcus to laugh.

"Yes, Baby" Olivia said still holding up the sandwich, "you have to eat something."

"Piece?" the child replied, pointing to the bag that held the sweet pastries. Or maybe it was please, she didn't know, unless the context was clear she could never distinguish between the two where the child was concerned since she didn't pronounce her L in please.

"No," Olivia laughed. "I don't think so. Not until you eat a few bites of something I have here." She picked up the oatmeal she had actually ordered for the child and tried again with. "Com'on just a few bites for Mommy. You might like it. Please?" Thankfully the child caved, which she did every now and again after realizing that she had successfully reduced her mother to begging.

"MMmm," the child said as she looked up and smiled at her mother, realizing that there was little bits of apple and some cinnamon mixed in the oatmeal.

"Yeah, see. I told you," Olivia smiled back, happy that she was actually going to get a good bit of the food into the child. After successfully getting her to eat half of the oatmeal, she allowed her to have a piece of the banana nut bread she had been itching to get to.

The office ended up being emptied out before noon. They had no work coming in so they had all decided to go finish up their holiday shopping. She sighed as she looked out the window as Adeline napped on the couch. It wasn't even Christmas and she was already beginning to feel alone. She really wished her plans hadn't fallen through. She looked at the invitation from the white house on her desk and entertained the idea for a few seconds before dismissing it again. That wasn't the crowd she wanted to celebrate the holidays with. She looked back out the window as a light snow began to fall. Everything about the view screamed Christmas time. Though that could have just been because she was in that type of mood but she was sure the city's decorations had something to do with it. She watched the people on the sidewalk as they moved about, some of them no doubt doing their last minute shopping as they carried multiple store bags. She wondered how many of them were counting down the hours until they could clock out and start their holiday plans of spending time with their loved ones. Who was planning to go pick up their guests from the airport and who was trying to coordinate well enough not to miss their flight out.

She watched a few minutes more then she got an idea, an idea that made her a little bit more optimistic about her holiday plans. The reason Jake couldn't come was because he wanted to be in New York to make sure that a deal went through and unfortunately that deal was set to be confirmed on Christmas Day. He couldn't leave but surely he could entertain company and if he couldn't she was sure Anna and Alex would. Though she would rather stay at Jake's as not to intrude on Anna and Alex with her sometimes cranky toddler and Anna had already told her that they had a party scheduled at their place along with some other events. Yeah, it would be better for them to stay with Jake and if not him maybe Stephen and Abby, but she didn't want to intrude on their romantic holiday so maybe not. She picked up her phone and dialed his number.

"Hey," she said once he picked up. "You busy?"

"No, what's up?" he asked. She assumed he went to some place with not as many people around as suddenly the background noises went away.

"Well I had an idea and I wanted to see what you thought of it," she told him.

"Shoot."

"Well I was thinking that since you can't come to D.C., Adeline and I can come to New York," she told him. He didn't reply right away, which prompted her to continue. "If you'd already made other plans that's fine, I just…,"

"No, Liv," he stopped her. "I think that's a great idea. You just took me by surprise. I thought you had plans in D.C. I didn't think you would want to come here, otherwise I would have offered."

"Well my plans fell through here, so it's just me and Addie," she told him.

"I think that's a great idea. When do you plan on coming up?"

She thought about it for a little bit. "I don't know." Her gaze diverted back out the window and she decided she wanted to get her holiday started sooner than later. She looked at the non urgent papers on her desk and decided that most of those things wouldn't call for completion until well after the holidays. "Maybe we can catch a train up... tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I have some time off tomorrow so I can grab you guys from the station."

"Okay then," she told him walking over to her computer. "I'll buy the ticket and let you know what time."

"Okay, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," he told her and she could hear the excitement in his voice. Finally things seemed to be looking up, and she finally had someone else's excitement to feed off of.

"Yeah, see ya," she said before hanging up the phone. She eagerly got online and purchased tickets for late morning. She figured if she got up at her normal time she'd be able to corral Adeline and get them down to the station in time enough to board the train without being rushed.

That reminded her. She needed to pack and finish up a few errands before she left. She also had some things she wanted to do around her apartment and she wanted to get the last of her gifts before heading out to New York. Sure she could shop while she was there since she was arriving five days before Christmas but she didn't want to have to worry about that. She decided that she should probably pack up and head out of the office for the day if she was going to get everything done.

* * *

She sighed as she rested her head back against the seat, looking out the window at the landscape that passed by. It was beautiful, much of it filled with snow. She looked down at the sleeping toddler in her arms and couldn't help the smile that came to her face. She placed a kiss on her forehead and the child remained still, her only movement being the rise and fall of her little chest. She was reminded why she had braved the morning that just seemed to be starting to calm down. She had gotten up early this morning to finish packing before readying herself. She was in the middle of her own breakfast when she heard Adeline beginning to wake up. She finished her breakfast, abandoning the bowl in the sink upon hearing the child beginning to cry. She had gotten her out of her crib, fed her, and dressed her. By the time she had everything packed in her car and had locked up her apartment, she was only fifteen minutes behind the schedule she had set for herself. She took a second to send Abby and Anna a text letting them know that she would be arriving in New York in a few hours before heading for the train station. Traveling with the amount of baggage she had and a one year old, well she had known that it would be taxing but she still wasn't prepared since this was her first time doing a planned trip this long alone with the child. Thankfully, after she had gotten rid of the the baggage, excluding the ones she would carry on with her things became a little more manageable. She had purchased two seats, figuring she would give the little girl the extra room she needed to bounce around as well as save some stranger the trouble of having to put up with sitting next to them as she did so. After she had gotten them settled into their seats, as expected Adeline had made good use of the extra space until she had tired herself out much to her mother's relief. She had purposfully booked the trip to extend through the girl's nap time, hoping that she could get her to sleep at during part of the trip. She gave herself a mental pat on the back before dipping her head to kiss the child's nose which caused her to let out a deep sigh, causing her mother to smile again.

This was going to be good for her, for them. She was starting to feel lonely in D.C. Ever since her team started disbanding, she had had this sinking feeling of loneliness. It had started with Stephen leaving, she and David weren't as close as they once were, Abby had gone to the white house and was even more unavailable now due to her relationship with Stephen, Harrison's murder, Huck reuniting with his family and wasn't any longer a sure thing that she could happen upon at her office at three in the morning when she couldn't sleep and just wanted to have the presence of someone else in the near vicinity, Quinn had Charlie, Anna had come and gone and didn't seem like she planned on returning for a long enough period for it to matter anytime soon, and then there was Jake. He was there, he tried his hardest to make it seem like he had never left but she noticed and she was pretty sure Adeline noticed as well. He had been helping her keep the lonely feeling at bay when he was there, and though she had missed her friends a lot, she never really felt lonely when he was in D.C. She figured that was because they spent most of their free time together. He would still say that he lived in D.C. but he didn't. He still rented a place there but he had recently bought a place in New York to be closer to his business and his business partner and she was just waiting for the words to fall from his lips informing her that he was officially moving to New York, although he had done it unofficially already. If all that didn't serve to make her feel lonely, they had come to an agreement that he would get to take Adeline up to New York with him for a few days when he was gone for longer than a week. She remembered the first time that she had sent her daughter off to New York with him. He had been hesitant about taking her because he could tell that she was hesitant about letting her go. But he had taken her, because he figured sooner or later they would have to come to term with things like this because they weren't together and he didn't hope or want as hard as he once did just because he found it easier not to and also because he wasn't convinced that she was completely done with Fitz, which pissed her off a little because she was completely and utterly done from that standpoint. Sure she still worked for the white house every now and again but that was only because she felt guilty. She had played a hand in giving the people of this country this in adequate excuse for a president so she felt the least she could do was see it through and make sure that he didn't completely and utterly fuck things up while he was in office. Though she did have a lapse that night that he had first taken Addie with him. She had felt so alone, she had ended up at the white house and had almost ended up in one of the beds with him, thankfully she had realized what was happening and had learned to pay attention to her emotions. As he pressed her up against the wall in the blind spot of the oval office, she realized that her means of forgetting and feeling something more, something better wasn't exactly working the way she had planned. She was already regretting it and nothing had happened yet. She was feeling empty and even more alone than when she had arrived. Needless to say she had rushed out of there so fast she left both their heads spinning. She hadn't given him an explanation and she hadn't cared if he needed one. He had called her continuously but she hadn't answered. She had turned that phone off, gone home and cried. Then her other phone had started ringing and she was about to pick it up and yell at him for not being able to take a hint, but Jake's picture had popped up. So she had dried her tears and tried to pull herself together as not to sound like she had been crying. She didn't really want to talk to him either but he had their daughter, she knew she needed to answer. He must have picked up on her sadness because he had told her to hang up and go to her computer so they could facetime. This was how the ritual of them facetiming every night and sometimes every morning when he was out of town had come about.

She still felt lonely at times but she had gotten more used to it. But she saw that this was leading back into a pattern for her. She had felt alone ever since she was twelve years old. Sometimes in between she would manage to get rid of the feeling, having a cohesive OPA was one of those times, but when she was feeling that way, she wasn't comfortable showing that to other people. She didn't want people to know that she needed them, she thought it was a sign of weakness. An idea she had beat into her own head back when she was a teenager trying to show her father that she didn't need him when all he ever tried to do was prove that she did and that she would fail miserably if she didn't have him so it was just better to let go of who she was and just give in and live by his rules. But she didn't want that life for her daughter and she didn't want to set that example for her. She didn't want her little girl to be afraid of or have too many warped ideas in her head to actively pursue her own happiness. She had been putting forth small efforts here and there, stepping out of her comfort zone, but this was the biggest step she believed she had made. Traveling such a distance at last minute to be with the people she cared for, it made her feel a little vulnerable but at the same time it made her really happy that she wouldn't have to spend this holiday alone trying to keep Adeline entertained. The little girl would have at least a room full of people to interact with and build healthy, loving relationships with and reason to begin loving the holiday even if she wouldn't remember this one in particular, she hoped that it would be a good foundation for the little girl to start to equate the holiday season with family and love. Something she never really had, but always wanted as a child as she saw that her friends had it, and something she had given up on completely as an adult until she became a mother herself.

She picked up her phone and found a bunch of texts. Some from Anna and Abby telling her to call when she got settled so they could make plans to go shopping and get pampered. Then there was Jake telling her that he would be at the train station to pick them up but that they would have to go get decorations for the Christmas tree since he just had a bare tree that he had brought the day before after finding out that they were coming up. He then went on to brag about how it had been hard but he thought it was a pretty decent tree. She could tell he was proud of himself and laughed to herself before replying and asking him if this was his first time picking and buying a tree to which he replied, "Yes, but I did good." Which caused her to laugh again. She told him that she would be the judge of that when she got there and that she would see him in a little bit. She then closed her eyes as she snuggled the child closer, hoping to get a little sleep herself during the last hour of the train ride.

He watched her from the other side of the train station as she exited the concourse trying to balance a sleeping Adeline as well as the two carry on bags she had had. He smiled as she watched her struggle a bit finally seeming to have everything together she looked up and saw him, a smile of her own appearing.

"Don't laugh at me," she said laughing herself, "help me."

He laughed again as he walked closer to her before taking Addie from her and settling her on his shoulder. He then bent a little and wrapped his arm around her back pulling her into a hug. She returned a hug and placed her right hand on his face, kissing him on the cheek before allowing him to pull away.

"Good to see you Liv," he said. "I was starting to miss you."

They hadn't seen each other in a while. The last time he had been home was just to drop off Addie and he had left her with Abby since Liv had been in a meeting and the time before that he had come to pick her up, she had been with Lauren because Liv was in Baltimore following up on a lead for a client. He could have seen her both times but he had only been in town for a few hours. So they hadn't seen each other in almost a month, which he didn't think they had gone that long without seeing each other in person since they had met, well other than the times he had been held captive.

"Aww, I miss you too," she said allowing him to take the heavier of the two bags. "Now let's go get my bags so we can go get the tree decorations and then we can go home and you can make me dinner. Oh, do you have wine?"

She smiled and he laughed. And he thought this was going to be awkward for her, but she was already making herself at home and they hadn't even gotten to his place yet. This was going to be fun, he thought as he placed a kiss on Adeline's cheek.

* * *

"No, put it on the left side. That side looks a little bare," he said as he laid down on the floor next to the couch, his head on one of the throw pillows.

"Over here?" she asked as she moved to the other side of the tree with the gold and and red ornaments.

She continued to decorate the tree and he continued to watch, musing over the fact that here they were together in his place decorating a Christmas tree while their toddler ran about finding new things to make into toys, occasionally creeping over to help her mother place an ornament on the tree. He wouldn't have thought it a few days ago. He wouldn't have thought it last Christmas either, when they had actually spent the holiday together and they had bought only a little Christmas tree in order to fascinate their then three month old. They literally just turned on the light and let her coo at it as that had been enough. Maybe he shouldn't have bought as big of a tree this year. After all, the girl was only one, yeah he probably overdid it, but he figured it would be worth it to see the look on Adeline's face once they plugged in the lights. Hell, it was already worth it just having the three of them together doing something so...normal, and enjoying each other's company as they did so. They were only friends, really good friends. Possibly best friends. They were no longer together in a romantic sense even though they still occasionally fell into bed together but it was never anything regretful the next morning. They would wake up in each other's arm, snuggle some, delaying getting out of bed, laugh and joke around in bed until they heard their daughter waking up in her room down the hall. He didn't really know what they were doing, he didn't think that they would ever end up official. She would probably go her own way, rather it be with the guy in D.C., someone else, or no one and he would probably do the same, but one thing hadn't changed, he still loved her, intensely. He was still in love with her, but he was also trying to live in the reality that he had been given. He didn't want to ruin what they had or ruin himself waiting for something more.

"Don't put all of them on that side Liv," he told her after she had placed a few more ornaments on the side that he had previously told her was bare. "Com'on, pull it together."

"Well," she sighed as she let the hand holding the ornament she was about to place on the tree fall to her side for a second as she looked at the tree. She turned around to tell him that she couldn't see the tree since she was right up on it, but stopped when she realized what he had been doing for the last thirty minutes. She gave him a look at the realization and he smiled, knowingly.

"If I'm not doing it to your liking maybe you should just get up and show me how to do it, Smartass," she laughed at the mischievous look on his face.

"I already did my part," he told her.

Her mouth fell. That he would even try to claim that he had already done his part. "You decorated the top third of the tree," she told him as she stepped back some, both of them looking at the tree, a clear distinctive line where the tree was fully decorated and the area that Olivia was still trying to finish up.

They both started laughing at how ridiculous it looked and he replied, "Yeah, the part you couldn't reach."

"Shut up," she said throwing one of the round ornaments at him which he caught right before it hit him in the chest. "And also the smallest part."

"Hey, you were the one that wanted all of these decorations. I was just going to buy a string of lights and a star and call it a Christmas," he informed her.

"No, you were going to buy those ugly fuschia and lime green ornaments," she informed him.

"Well excuse me," he started still lying on the floor. "I was under the impression that I was decorating a tree for the one year old child not the thirty six year old one."

"Yeah, well," she said going back to placing ornaments, "just because she's one and likes bright things doesn't mean we have to teach her to be gaudy."

He laughed again as Adeline toddled back over to them in her red footed onesie with white snowflakes all over it. She braced her sippy cup against her body and bent down to take the ornament from him. She then made her way to her mother before lifting it up towards the woman for her to place it on the tree.

"Thank you, Baby," Olivia said as she smiled down at the child. "You want to help Mommy?"

"Uh uhn," the child shook her head as she turned and began walking away from the woman. Jake laughed and Olivia smiled before telling him to shut up and get up and help her.

Before he could reply, Adeline walked over to him and sat down on his chest, using him like a chair as she leaned back against the sofa.

"Well now I can't," was his reply.

She put the box of ornaments down, went over to them and picked up Adeline, sat her on the sofa and told him now that he was done being a chair, he could get up and help her. He did and thirty minutes later they were done. He then lifted Adeline up letting her put the little gold and white angel on top of the tree.

"Okay ready," Olivia said as she went behind the tree to plug in the lights.

"Wait let me turn off the lights," he replied as he ran over to the light switch turning them off.

"Okay," he said letting her know that he was ready as he readjusted Adeline in his arms so that she was facing the Christmas tree.

She plugged it in and went to go stand with them, admiring the job that they had done and smiling at the look of amazement on her daughter's face.

"You like it, Addie?" she questioned, proud of their work and the fact that she had picked just the right amount of red to add to the tree to give it a little more color. The child responded by taking the sippy cup from her mouth and pointing at the tree, attempting to say tree, but missing the T. Olivia took that as a yes as the child seemed one hundred percent more excited about the tree than she did when she initially saw it standing there bare.

"We did good," Jake said holding up his hand. She immediately brought her hand up and hit it against his, but he held on to it. "Hey you wanna go make some hot chocolate while I plug in the other lights and flip on the television, The Grinch is coming on in like five."

"Yes," she told him as if that was a question that he needed to ask. She turned to go to the kitchen and laughed when she heard him say to put some Bailey's in his. She returned a little while later to see him sitting on the couch with Addie as the opening credits for the Grinch started to stroll across the screen. He had plugged in all the extra lights that they had lined the living room with and left the main light off, giving the room a very warm, Christmas type feel. She handed him his mug and sat next to him as they all set entranced by the television set.

Olivia knew what time it was when she felt the familiar weight of her daughter's head falling into her side.

"Well that was quick," she said causing Jake to look over at them. She placed her empty mug down and picked the child up, laying her on the opposite side of her as she scooted closer to Jake to make room for her. She then placed the pink and white winter themed blanket that Anna had brought over her, the child continued to sleep peacefully.

"Now that the light weight is out, I've got some coquito," he told her. "Want some?"

She just handed him her mug. He got up and returned with both of the mugs refilled. They watched the rest of the movie laughing and making commentary here and there that let them know that they were thinking about this movie entirely too hard. Soon the movie was over and he turned the television to home fire place causing them to look at each other and laugh at the ridiculousness of it. They just sat talking, enjoying the ambiance that the lights and makeshift fireplace provided them.

During a lull of comfortable silence in their conversation, he grabbed another remote and clicked on the stereo. He hit a couple of more buttons and the soft sounds of Christmas music started to flow from the speakers.

She didn't know how she ended up in his arms as they danced about his living room to Christmas songs. It had started out light hearted, Bing Crosby singing Frosty the Snowman to which they sang along to, Ray Charles singing Little Drummer Boy, Carol of the Bells to which they had tried to harmonize to and laughed most of their way through it but stopped when they almost woke up Adeline. She believes that it was sometime during All I Want for Christmas by Mariah Carey that she stood up and started dancing about the living room. She pulled him into it and they stayed up dancing albeit more slowly when Nat King Cole's rendition of The Christmas Song sounded throughout the room. They remained there during Michael Buble singing I'll Be Home for Christmas, where she convinced him to let her invite their friends and family over to his place for Christmas dinner. Though he did laugh when she said that she would be the one to prepare that dinner, to which she hit him in the shoulder and backed away from him a little but couldn't help but to smile as she called his name reprimanding him for finding so much humor in the thought of her actually cooking a presentable Christmas dinner. He had told her that it was more believable when she said she would do so with Anna's help. He opened his arms and invited her back into them, she rolled her eyes but accepted his invitation.

She'd forgotten how much she had missed dancing in her living room with him. It was something that occurred initially when she was pregnant but became a frequent occurrence once she started cleansing her life of all the negativity as Anna liked to call the process. She'd also forgotten or tried to ignore just how much she had missed him. She laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes as he pulled her a little tighter, inhaling that scent that was uniquely him. A smile came to her face as she remembered when she had tried to described the things she missed about him to Anna when she was pregnant and he was being held captive. She had mentioned his scent citing a number of fragrances to which Anna told her that it was gunpowder she was thinking of. She missed Anna. The woman always seemed to find a way to make light of a not so bright situation. She couldn't wait to see her. She felt him press a kiss to the crown of her head and her eyes opened to land on Adeline, who continued to sleep peacefully. Her smile widened and she looked up at him as they continued to sway from side to side. Her eyes darted to his lips then back up to his eyes, letting him know that if he wanted to actually kiss her, he could and he should.

Thankfully he got the hint and his mouth descended slowly upon hers, engaging their lips and a sweet, tender kiss. After a few seconds they pulled apart and she continued to look up at him.

"I'm glad you came, Liv," he told her as he smiled down at her.

She responded by wrapping her arms back around him, laying her head down on his chest and sighing contentedly. "Me too," she whispered just loud enough for him to hear.

* * *

 **A/N: Alright, leave you reviews and let me know what you think.**


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